Article Sugdenfgh fhfg

8/12/2019 Article Sugdenfgh fhfg

1/6


2/6

62 Robert Sugden

able to point to features that are common to Humes theory and social contracttheory, and to use contractarianism as a generic term which encompasses both.This way of categorising ideas is useful in economics, because the common fea-tures of the contractarian approach are not present in mainstream normativeeconomics. Normative economics, as conventionally practised, produces recom-mendations that are addressed to an imagined social planner or policy-maker,modelled as a benevolent despot. The contractarian approach, as I characteriseit, is addressed to individuals, imagined as potential parties to mutually bene-cial agreements. I explain this idea in more detail in another paper (Sugden

2013). Hume and the writers that Jasay presents as social contract theoristsare all on the contractarian side of this divide. Given that this is such a minor-ity position in normative economics, I see no merit in factional in-ghting. Onepersons wooliness is another persons broad church.

However, there is one substantive philosophical issue on which Jasay and Idisagree, and which is important for the question posed by the organisers of thisspecial topic, of whether a social contract can be signed by an invisible hand.That issue is the interpretation of Humes concept of convention. I agree withJasay that Humes theory of convention provides analytical resources on whichtheories of ordered anarchy can draw. But I do not agree that Humes analy-sis supports Jasays categorical distinction between ordered anarchy and socialcontract. In the present paper, I will focus on this issue.

Let me begin by pointing to two features of Jasays reading of Hume thatseem strained.

The rst is Jasays characterisation of Humes political orientation as orderedanarchism. Jasay (2010, 402) sketches of a set of conventions, centred on thegreat Humean trinity of ownership, transfer and promise, and describes thisas the foundational institution of ordered anarchy. He then says:

In a closed society, this set of convention[s] sufces to keep the peaceand to uphold the social order, and makes the Hobbesian governmentredundant, just as the creation of such government by social contractmakes the set of conventions redundant. Humeans would have nohesitation in deciding which of the two is redundant.

After noting that many political theorists have thought that ordered anarchy ispossible only in very small societies, Jasay says:

Hume was perfectly aware of the small group-large group problem.He nevertheless judged that a society ruled only by its conventionscould function as an ordered anarchy if left alone. He declared un-ambiguously that [. . . ]I assert the rst rudiments of government toarise from quarrels, not among men of the same society, but among those of different societies.

On Jasays reading, it seems, Hume maintained that the commercial societies of his time did not need organised government. But I know of no passage in Humes


3/6

Contractarianism as a Broad Church 63

work that suggests that this was his view. To the contrary, Hume says that, justas in the case of the principle of property, interest is at once the original mo-tive to this institution [i.e. government], and the source of our obedience to it.He goes on: This interest I nd to consist in the security and protection, whichwe enjoy in political society, and which we can never attain, when perfectly freeand independent. (1978[173940], 550551) And, again drawing a parallel be-tween the institution of government and the institution of property: Nothing ismore advantageous to society than such an invention [i.e. government]; and thisinterest is sufcient to make us embrace it with ardour and alacrity. (556)

The originality of Humes analysis of political obligation comes when he dis-cusses the question of which government (or potential government) should re-ceive peoples allegiance. Hume is clear-sighted in recognising that almost allroyal houses, and indeed almost all political structures, were originally foundedon usurpation and rebellion, and that it is only the effects of time that makeany form of government seem rightful. But nevertheless, he recommends hisreaders to give allegiance to governments that have acquired this appearance of rightfulness (556). Jasay (2013) describes Humes attitude to government as ac-quiescence: Hume taught that man does not create and approve of the author-ity of the state, but acquiesces in it. The suggestion is that Humes ideal is theabolition of government, but his attitude seems better described as (in GeoffreyBrennan and Alan Hamlins [2004] expression) analytic conservatism . Humedoes not pretend that, in any absolute sense, the Hanoverian monarchs have auniquely rightful claim to rule Great Britain at the time he is writing; but itseems clear that he does approve of their authority (see, e.g., Hume 1985[1777],502511). When Hume discusses the claims of royal houses to the allegiance of the British people, his comparisons are between alternative rulers, not betweengovernment and anarchy. For example, he suggests that, had history turned outdifferently, Britain might now (that is, in 1740) be ruled by Cromwells succes-sors, in which case theyand Cromwell himself, retrospectivelywould be seenas having the same legitimacy as the Hanoverians in fact enjoy (1978[173940],566567).

Notice that in the passage that Jasay quotes, Hume is writing about the rstrudiments of government , not about government in the commercial societies of his own time. Humes argument, as I read it, is that small and economically

primitive societies, such as those of the native populations of north America, areable to organise their internal affairs by self-enforcing conventions, and needorganised government only for warfare. Thus, the rst form of government wasthat of temporary military commanders (1978[173940], 539541). One does nothave to be an anarchist to recognise the plausibility of this explanation of theorigins of government.

A second tension in Jasays reading of Hume concerns the status of promises.Jasay (2013) writes:

Hume recognizes the performance of promises as one of the keyconventions of the social order. Arguably, it is self-referential: com-


4/6

64 Robert Sugden

pliance with this convention ensures the performance of promises,and promising to comply with any convention transforms that con-vention into a binding commitment.

If I have understood this passage correctly, Jasay is suggesting that one partof the great Humean trinity of conventions may be philosophically unsound.But if this reading of Jasay is correct, he has misunderstood Humes concept of convention. On Humes analysis, the performance of promises is a convention,and there is no self-reference in that proposition. And, which is more to thepoint of the topic of my paper, ordered anarchy and contract are not categoricallyopposed to one another.

Humes (1978[173940]) account of convention begins with his discussion of the law of stability of possession in goods that are external to individuals, andhence capable of being transferred between them. The content of this law is:

a convention enterd into by all the members of the society to be-stow stability on the possession of those external goods, and leaveeveryone in the peaceable enjoyment of what he may acquire by hisfortune and industry (489).

Explaining what he means by convention, Hume goes on:

This convention is not of the nature of a promise : For even promises

themselves, as we shall see afterwards, arise from human conven-tions. It is only a general sense of common interest; which senseall the members of the society express to one another, and whichinduces them to regulate their conduct by certain rules. I observe,that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession of his goods, provided he will act in the same manner with regard tome. He is sensible of a like interest in the regulation of his conduct.When this common interest is mutually expressd, and is known toboth, it produces a suitable resolution and behaviour. And this mayproperly enough be calld a convention or agreement betwixt us, thowithout the interposition of a promise; since the actions of each of us have a reference to that of the other, and are performd on thesupposition, that something is to be performd on the other part.(490)

When Hume says that the rule of stability of possession may properly enoughbe called a convention, he seems to be acknowledging that, in its linguisticallyproper sense, convention implies agreement. In calling the rule a conventionhe is claiming that, in signicant respects, it is like an agreement. At the sametime, he is stressing that it is not an agreement in the usual sense of an ex-change of promises. To the contrary, the practice of promise-keeping is itself aconvention.

Hume is not slipping into self-reference here. He is formulating a philosoph-ically precise concept which has some of the content of agreement but is more


5/6

Contractarianism as a Broad Church 65

fundamental than that of an exchange of promises. I see Humes construction of this concept as among his greatest philosophical achievements.

According to Humes account, a convention rests on a general sense of com-mon interest ; each member of society has this sense and is aware that the othershave it too. The content of a convention is reciprocal : each individual constrainshis own actions as part of a general practice in which other people constraintheirs. As Hume puts it:

A single act of justice is frequently contrary to public interest . [. . . ]But however single acts of justice may be contrary, either to publicor private interest, tis certain, that the whole plan or scheme ishighly conducive, or indeed absolutely requisite, both to the supportof society, and the well-being of every individual. Tis impossibleto separate the good from the ill. [. . . ] And even every individualperson must nd himself a gainer, on ballancing the account; since,without justice, society must immediately dissolve [. . . ]. (497)

As this passage makes clear, the idea of mutual advantage is an essential partof Humes account of a conventional practice: on ballancing the account, eachindividual construes the practice as a whole as benecial to him . Thus, althougha convention is not an exchange of promises, it is a form of exchange.

In this respect, Humes concept of convention is not quite the same as the onethat has come to be used by game theorists. Game theorists tend to use the termconvention to describe any Nash equilibrium that is sustained in recurrent playof a game in which there are two or more such equilibria. Such an equilibriumis a convention in Humes sense only if it is associated with a sense of commoninterest. Common interest is important for Hume because he is concerned withstability of possession not only as a social fact, but also as a rule of justice , towhich the idea of virtue has been annexed. His account of the moral obliga-tion to comply with the rules of justice depends on the assumption that peoplehave a natural tendency to sympathise with the public interest that those rulespromote: Thus self-interest is the original motive to the establishment of justice:but a sympathy with public interest is the source of the moral approbation, whichattends that virtue . (499500)

So, for Hume, a convention is a mutually benecial practice that is generally

followed in a society; each individual is motivated to follow it both by interestand by a sense of justice; but both motivations are conditional on the expectationthat others will follow the practice too. The performance of promises is oneexample of such a practice. In a society in which the convention of promise-keeping is generally followed, mutually benecial agreements can be carried outthrough the exchange of promises. In this sense, explicit agreement is a specialcase of Humes concept of convention. But that concept also includes practicesthat might reasonably be called implicit agreements.

Hume continually emphasises the social and historical contingency of con-ventions. In particular, the rules that dene stability of possession in any givensociety are often arbitrary. Hume explains many of their peculiarities in terms


6/6

66 Robert Sugden

of the workings of human imagination in perceiving associations of ideas (501513). Even the more fundamental rules for determining property rights, whichHume thinks are common to most societies, have morally arbitrary implications.For example, the principle of prescription (by which a person acquires a prop-erty right in an object by uninterrupted possession of it over an extended period)allows acts of theft and violence to be retrospectively legitimised. Hume arguesthat, because there is such a strong common interest in stability of possession,it is in everyones interest to accept these apparently arbitrary features of prop-erty. According to Hume, Tis the same case with government (556). Thus, the

Hanoverians claim to allegiance rests on a political analogue of the principle of prescription.So is Hume a social contract theorist? Yes and no. He does not claim that

political institutions acquire legitimacy through actual agreements in which in-dividuals exchange promises. Nor does he claim that the test of their legitimacyis that they could have been formed in this way. But he does claim that, in rea-sonably well-functioning societies, political institutions are conventions in thesame sense that rules of property are conventions, and that allegiance to thoseinstitutions naturally and properly comes to be seen as morally obligatory. If conventions can be thought of as implicit agreements, Hume is arguing thatsocial contracts can be signed by invisible hands.

References

Brennan, G. and A. Hamlin (2004), Analytic Conservatism, British Journal of PoliticalScience 34, 675691.

Hume, D. (1978[173940]), A Treatise of Human Nature , Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

(1985[1777]), Of the Protestant Succession. Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary ,Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Jasay, A. de (2010), Ordered Anarchy and Contractarianism, Philosophy 85, 399403.

(2013), Conduct and Contract, Rationality, Markets and Morals (RMM) 4, spe-cial topic: Can the Social Contract Be Signed by an Invisible Hand?, ed. by Geof-frey Brennan and Bernd Lahno, 5360, URL: http://www.rmm-journal.de/downloads/

Article_Jasay.pdf Sugden, R. (2009), Can a Humean Be a Contractarian?, in: Baurmann, M. and B.

Lahno (eds.), Perspectives in Moral Science: Contributions from Philosophy, Eco-nomics, and Politics in Honour of Hartmut Kliemt , Frankfurt: Frankfurt School Ver-lag, 1124, also: RMM 0, URL: http://www.rmm-journal.de/downloads/ 002_sugden.pdf

(2013), The Behavioural Economist and the Social Planner: To Whom Should Be-havioural Welfare Economics Be Addressed?, Inquiry 56, 519538.

Documents

Article Sugdenfgh fhfg